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In the dock was the well known lawyer and former UMNO politician, Marina Yusof

The veteran and outspoken politician was charged :

That she on 29 September 1999 at the Moral Uplifting Society Hall, Bukit Mertajam, uttered the following seditious words
 

Saya nak ingat orang Melaya, orang Cina, orang India, punca  13 Mei, puncanya ialah UMNO, UMNO yang mula membunuh orang Cina kerana UMNO di Selangor sudah kalah. Pembunuhan orang Cina dimulakan oleh UMNO, masa itu dirancang pemimpin-pemimpin UMNO dan Selangor diketuai oleh Dato Harun

A rough translation:  I should like to remind the Malays, the 
     Chinese and the Indians that the cause of May 13 was 
     UMNO, UMNO that began killing Chinese because UMNO 
     in Selangor had lost. The killing of Chinese was begun by
     UMNO, the planning by the leaders of UMNO and Selangor
     headed by Dato Harun

The trial was useful for reminding us that the rules and regulations governing the holding of meetings introduced by the British colonial administration and still used today.

The application  for a talk or meeting or procession is made to the chief police officer of the district and handled by a police superintendent: as many as 6 copies are required.

Vetting is done by the Special Branch  of the area , contingent , criminal investigation; the bahagian ketenteraman awam,  and head of the police station at the place of meeting and, of course, there is one copy for the file

It is only after this careful filtering that the permit is finally issued by the CPO of the district 

During the meeting surveillance is done by video camera,  audio recording, while uniformed men patrol around area

Transcripts are then done from the audio and video source

Marina’s speech was recorded from 9.40 pm to 10.10 pm and video from 50 ft away 

She was then charged under the Sedition Act 1948,  a  sacred  text inherited from the British.

Dr Khoo Boo Teik, Associate Professor,  School of Social Science, USM  was called as a witness for the defence. In his opinion, based on the police transcript,  Marina was responding to  certain statements in election campaigns conducted by Barisan Nasional. He thought some of the campaign was fairly alarmist in its reference to the inter racial violence of May 1969. He understood the gist of the paragraph (in Marina’s speech) to be an attempt to rebut that line of alarmist campaigning. In his opinion in 1999 what she had said would not be seditious 

To sum up, the Marina Yusof's defence was that her words had been taken out of context. She had referred to a speech by the Prime Minister as reported in the Berita Harian of August 10th (handed into court as Exhibit D17). In the proper context she had wanted to reassure the people especially the Chinese that if the Barisan Alternatif was elected by them BA would make sure trouble would not happen and that those who tried to make trouble would be arrested. She had assured the Chinese that the Malays would look after them in their area and that Chinese would guarantee the safety of Malays in their area and similarly with the Indians as she wanted a situation of peace and not destruction. 

However the Magistrate would have none of it and held her guilty, imposing a fine of RM5000. #

"seditious" when applied to or used in respect of any act, speech, words, publication or other thing qualifies the act, speech, words, publication or other thing as one having a seditious tendency;

section 3. (1) A "seditious tendency" is a tendency 

(a) to  bring  into  hatred  or  contempt  or  to  excite disaffection  against any Ruler or against any Government;
(b) to excite the subjects of any Ruler or the inhabitants of any territory governed by any Government to attempt to procure in the territory of the Ruler or governed by the Government, the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any matter as by law established;
(c)  to  bring  into  hatred  or  contempt  or  to  excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Malaysia or in any State;
(d) to  raise  discontent  or  disaffection  amongst  the subjects of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong or of the Ruler of any State or amongst the inhabitants of Malaysia or of any State; or
(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia.

(2)  Notwithstanding  anything in  sub-section  (1)  an  act speech, words, publication or other thing shall not be deemed to be seditious by reason only that it has a tendency —
.. .. ..
.. .. .. 
 (d) to point out, with  a view to their removal, any matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of ill-will and enmity between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia,  if the act, speech, words, publication or other thing has not otherwise in fact a seditious tendency.